Literary wonders fill woman's world

By HECTOR TOBARLos Angeles Times

February 23, 2014 12:01 AM

By HECTOR TOBARLos Angeles Times

February 23, 2014 12:01 AM

"An Unnecessary Woman"

By Rabih Alameddine

Grove Press; 320 pages; $25

Rabih Alameddine's beautiful new novel is ostensibly about an elderly woman living alone in her Beirut apartment. Once married but quickly divorced, Aaliya appears to be, as the title says, "An Unnecessary Woman."

But Aaliya's solitude is filled with incident and wonder. She lives in a city whose very name is synonymous with conflict and disorder. In Beirut it's perfectly normal for a spinster to don a pink tracksuit and pick up an AK-47 in defense of her abode.

She translates their books into Arabic, filling up her home with three dozen translations -- which no one else has ever read.

"I imagine looking at this room through a stranger's eyes," Aaliya says of her apartment. "Books everywhere, stacks and stacks, shelves and bookcases, stacks atop each shelf, I in the creaky chair. I have been its only occupant."

Alameddine is the Lebanese-American author of four previous works of fiction (including the international best-seller "The Hakawati"). He is a resident of San Francisco and Beirut. The latter city and its violent recent history provide the setting for "An Unnecessary Woman," as Aaliya witnesses a series of battles between militias and an invasion by the Israeli army.